MEET THE AUTHOR

How did you come to write the book?

I started writing the book after my mother Edna died. My heart broke, so I wrote and wrote and wrote in longhand bits that I remembered she’d told me about our family. Later, I was having lunch with my, and I was telling him a couple of stories. He said, “Nye, why don’t you write a book?” And I said, “Well, I have actually.” And that’s how the book came about. They did say that they had to remove the naughty bits about my life! There are still a couple of questions I would like to have asked my mother. Because the doctor gave me my name ‘Aneira’ after Aneurin Bevan, the founder of the National Health Service, I wish I’d found out what she would have named me. I’ll never know now. One more thing I’d like to have known – what did she wear on her wedding day? It was the lean times of the 1930s. She probably only had one dress.